December 2, 2010
"The President continues to believe that extending middle class tax cuts is the most important thing we can do for our economy right now and he applauds the House for passing a permanent extension," the White House said in a prepared statement. "But, because Republicans have made it clear that they won't pass a middle class extension without also extending tax cuts for the wealthy, the President has asked Director (Jacob) Lew and Secretary (Tim) Geithner to work with Congress to find a way forward. The talks are ongoing and productive, but any reports that we are near a deal in the tax cuts negotiations are inaccurate and premature.
December 9, 2010
In today's White House briefing, Press Secretary Robert Gibbs addressed the Democratic resolution and Pelosi not bringing the deal to a floor for a vote as its currently written: "This is a long and winding process, but I think that at the end of the day, members are not going to want to be in their districts...when their constituents find out on the first of January that their taxes have gone up by several hundred thousands of dollars. ... It was a voice vote...and my guess is if a lot of voices yell one thing, you may not yell the other."
One wonders why the President's press secretary did make the same, excuse my language, FREAKIN' STATEMENT LAST WEEK.
Actually, I know why. The President doesn't respect the House of Representatives and actually prefers this deal.
Maybe the President should kindly ask Mr. Lew and Mr. Geithner to look for a way forward. And if he doesn't, House Democrats should let them know where they will be when they decide they want to "negotiate with the people threatening to harm the hostages," to coin a phrase.
Maybe the House won't cave this time, but I wouldn't bank on it. Regardless, the transparent political hypocrisy of the New Democrat led administration is incredibly frustrating.
One a side note, it is critical that any agreement not leave out federal workers from any payroll tax holiday.
At a time when state and local governments across the country are imposing furloughs and layoffs, and President Obama has frozen pay for federal employees, it turns out that one of the few groups to face higher federal taxes next year may be public sector employees.
The proposal to extend the Bush-era tax breaks unveiled by Mr. Obama this week would offer a tax cut for most Americans. The deal would end the Making Work Pay credit, which gave a tax reduction of up to $400 to workers with low and middle incomes. That credit will be replaced by a 2 percent decrease in the payroll tax for Social Security for people of all incomes.
But more than six million federal, state and local government employees do not pay into Social Security at all. Instead, they pay into public pension systems. So if the agreed proposal becomes law, such employees will lose the $400 credit and would not reap any benefit from the payroll tax cut.
What does the President of the United States have against federal workers? Then again, he does admire Ronald Reagan, so maybe he is just trying to make his predecessor proud.